Question about the birthplace of my ancestor and how its written on a census record.?

Question

On my great great grandparents 1920 census record it says

Barney Allen
Born: abt. 1874 in Sochowolie Po-Russia
Immigrated:1896
His parents were both born in Sochowolie too.

Jenny Allen
Born: abt 1877 in Corva Russia
Immigrated: 1896
Her parents were both born in Sochowolie, RUSSIA.

Now, does Po-Russia mean Poland-Russia, was it once apart of Poland? or was it once a part of Russia?

Also, i can't find Sochowolie, Russia, or Corva, Russia, on the maps.

I found two towns in Poland similar to Sochowolie. A town called Suchowola, Poland, and a town called Sochowice, Poland on the map.

So could the census taker made a big spelling mistake?

Answer 1

This looks like the town.. If I were the census taker talking to two Polish/Russian immigrants and trying to spell the town name, I might spell it the same way.



http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suchowola

Answer 2

It is very possible, actually probable that the towns you are looking for no longer exist or are not longer a part of Poland. You might try looking on a historical map. The borders of Poland and the surrounding countries have changed several times since your Great Great Grandparents were born and there have been two world wars.

The census taker could have easily made that big a mistake, most spoke English, and the spelling would have have been a somewhat phonetic version of what was heard.



Since you site the 1920 census I am assuming you have a copy of it so will not point you to a site where you can look at it.

However you might want to try Familysearch.com, it is free and has research tools that might help you in your search for the town or other European Country searches. Once in the site click on Library and then on education. There is a lot of information on research methods there. The site also has the same access as ancestry, and perhaps more. Even if you find nothing that assists you with this the site is well worth trying.

Answer 3

You have to remember that the European map of 1920 was not the same as today. Po-Russia usually means what was called Prussia, a part of Eastern Poland that was disputed between Poland and Russia. At times this was part of Poland, Russia and Germany. My guess is that those towns are now inside the Polish boundaries. What you need is an old Atlas that will give you the boundaries as they existed in 1920 and then you can compare them to what you see in today's maps. You can also go online and look up the towns you suspect and read a history about them to see if they match with what is listed on the Census record.

There should be a Family History Center near you, operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that will have resources to help you with your research.

Answer 4

Poland ceased to exist as a nation toward the end of the 1700s and was divided between Russia, Prrussia and to a lesser extent by Austria. So probably he was born in the Russian part of Poland. Poland as a nation was brought back into existence after WW1 by the Treaty of Versailles.

Answer 5

Po/Russia is Poland/Russia it is not Prussia/Poland. Prussia was an independent state never a part of Russia. The Kingdom of Prussia became part of the German Empire in 1871



In the1700s Poland's three powerful neighbours, Russia, Prussia and Austria, each wanted to own Poland.  This was all but impossible without risking war with each other.  They finally settled their dispute by dividing Poland among themselves in a series of agreements called the Three Partitions of Poland. In the1870s Russia attempted to eradicate Polish culture, making Russian the official language of the Russian partition.  Prussia does the same in their portion of Poland, attempting to Germanicize Poles. Under the Austrian partition, Galician Poles were allowed to retain some autonomy. Poland finally became independent again after the end of the 1st.World War.

Po/Russia refers to that part of Poland which was under Russian control, and is the part of Poland your grandparents were from.



See maps etc- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland

[to enlarge maps click on the maximise icon at bottom right of each map]



It means that your great grandparents were living in Russian controlled Poland, whether they considered themselves Polish or Russian only they could say, where did they, or their immediate ancestors live before they lived in "Poland"? Russian, Polish, Austrian, German, they are only labels attached to people, or families, who have lived for a period of time in a particular place, everybody has to have migrated from somewhere else before they settled for a generation or four and then moving on to another area or country, migration has been happening for thousands of years.

Answer 6

The place for Jenny could be Corua, Cowa as I look at the scanned image and in 1910 census they have "Russia" as places born. There is a Barney Allen in WWI Civilian Draft Registrations, born March 13, 1873 birthplace: citizen of Russia, City/County (living) NYC (Brooklyn) #73 State NY Ethnicity: White



As for spelling by census worker or those answering questions it can be a nightmare in finding and confirming records, names and places.



You can do some more research here:

http://www.worldgenweb.org/



If you know his children has SSNs then you can order a copy of their SS-5 application that should name parents and places of birth.

Answer 7

I think it could have been a transcriber/enumerator spelling it as it sounded to them at the time. Wikipedia has an article on Suchowola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suchowola):

"Suchowola [suxɔˈvɔla] is a town in north-eastern Poland in Sokółka county, located on both banks of the Olszanka River. The town was founded in 16th century and in 1777 it was granted with city rights. In 1775 royal astronomer Szymon Antoni Sobiekrajski published a report in which he stated that Suchowola is the exact geographic centre of Europe. Due to serious losses in population during the World War II the rights were halted in 1950. On January 1, 1997, Suchowola became a town again." [I think I'd go with this spelling since the other didn't come into existence till much later.]

Its website is http://www.suchowola.com.pl

[When I put Sochowice, Poland in Wikipedia's search line, it came back with "Did you mean: Sosnowice, Poland?" When I put in Corva, Russia, it asked if I meant CORA, Russia? When I clicked on that, it asked about GORA, of which there are six rural localities in Moscow Oblast as of 2009; 1 in Vladimir Oblast ; and several other rural localities in Russia.]



A Yahoo search for Sosnowice, Poland came back with "Sosnowiec , Poland?" This is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland, near Katowice, and only formed in 1999. Its name comes from Polish "sosna", referring to the pine forests which were common prior to 1830. It was originally known as Sosnowice. Sosnowiec was granted city rights only in 1902, over a century after the military partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Sosnowiec belonged originally to the Kraków Voivodeship (14th century-1795). As a result of the third partition of Poland however, it was seized by the Kingdom of Prussia and joined with the New Silesia. During the Napoleonic Wars against Prussians, it became part of the Duchy of Warsaw and later, Congress Poland ruled by the namestniks (Viceroys) of the Russian Empire. In June 1902, by the order of tsar Nicholas II, Sosnowiec was legally named a city with the area of 19 km² and with 60,000 inhabitants.

Its website is http://www.sosnowiec.pl.



As for them speaking Yiddish: "Yiddish (ייyidish or אידיש idish, literally "Jewish") is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to Central and Eastern Europe and eventually to other continents.

It is spoken today in the United States, Israel, Poland, Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Mexico, Moldova, Lithuania, Belgium, Germany, Australia, France and elsewhere.



[Also, Poland at one time or another was part of Russia. My friend's great-grandfather was born in Lithuania, but it always comes up as Russia as his birthplace because at one time it, also was part of Russia--along with Latvia and Estonia. For instance, the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was established after the occupation and later annexation of Lithuania in 1940 and existed until 1990, while the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the southwest. Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies Sweden and Denmark. Its population is 3.28 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius, where my friend's great-grandfather was born. He, too, spoke Yiddish.]